MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

I have a question. Lets say you have the leaf of some plant and you want to separate the cells from one another so that you can image with a microscope a single freely suspended cell that is not attached to any other cells. How do you separate the cells to accomplish this? My understanding is that plants cells are attached to one another via some sort of protein glue. I'm assuming that there must be some means of removing that stuff without damaging the cells. How is that done? What chemicals are used? And are the chemicals dangerous to people?

Anything I am aware of would be damaging to cell structure. Most of the time it is the cell wall that survives the experience and everything inside is destroyed. It is far easier to focus attention upon a single cell within a structure then to disrupt the structure.